An operator of a furnace may learn the furnace internal conditions in order to control furnace settings and to achieve a threshold efficiency. For instance, an accurate estimation of an internal radiance field of a furnace can be used to determine if the furnace is operating appropriately. A radiance field, as used herein, can include a measure of radiance that passes through or is emitted from a surface and falls within a given angle in a specified direction. An operator can learn this operation by regular on-stream inspection of a furnace.
One on-stream inspection method is temperature measurements at various locations of the furnace. However, the temperature measurements are limited to locations where temperature sensors (e.g., thermal couples) can be placed. The physical limitation can result local point measurements, and not an entire radiance field estimation.
Another method is based on imaging of the furnace using one or more imaging components. An imaging component may be designed to capture images of one or more wavelengths, including visible, infrared (e.g., short, medium, and/or long wave), and/or ultra-violet. The imaging method can estimate the radiance field at a uniform resolution from images captured by the one or more imaging components covering an area of the furnace (e.g., a combustion chamber of the furnace).
The radiance field estimation may be desirable at a higher resolution in a particular area of interest of the furnace (e.g., burners and the exhaust pipe); whereas it may be sufficient to have radiance field estimated at lower resolutions in other areas. Estimating the radiance field of the furnace at a finer resolution uniformly across all areas of the furnace can increase the processing time exponentially as the resolution increases.